by Kitty Wilder
“You’re prey, Lucy. You’ll always be prey...”
She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think of anything else while her captor’s hands groped her breasts through her dress, but the words kept skipping on repeat.
“That’s all Lerexus sees in you.”
“Silly little girl.”
“Prey.”
His hands moved to her hips, clawing at her with a dark need, then pulled her onto his lap to lean back against his chest while his fingers tickled up her skirt. “You’re an exceptional little creature,” he whispered huskily in her ear. “I haven’t lain with a mortal in thousands of years and have not even been tempted in almost as long. Now,” he trailed off, licking up the side of her neck over the weak pulse fluttering beneath the washed-out skin. “Gods, I can’t seem to help myself.”
He spread her legs to hang off either side of his knees and pressed his erection against her ass as he slid his fingers into her warm opening. “Do you like me inside of you, little mouse?”
She sighed, furious with her body for responding to his touch.
He slipped his fingers out of her and caressed her inner thigh. “Do you think me a monster, sugar? I see it when you look at me. It is a look I’ve known since I was a child. People have always looked on me with disgust.” His other hand pulled the neck of her dress down to expose one of her breasts to the warm wind stirring in the courtyard. His cool fingers tweaked her nipple to life. “Would it shock you to know I feel? I am not without a heart or my own morbid fears.”
Another sigh exited her as he pinched the rosy bud of her nipple and tugged it harder, then slipped under her dress to pinch the other. She felt heat gather in her pussy and her thighs tremble as she fought the urge to squeeze them together for relief.
“Wright stole my family from me, betrayed my trust, allowed the slaughter of my children by fire and the silver blades of the Venatores. He turned on his own kind, his own blood, and left me once more an orphan.” He gently bit her bare shoulder then kissed along its slope before continuing, “Do you understand, Lucy?”
She was shocked to hear her name on his lips. Her mind felt foggy, her thoughts clouded by an unwilling lust. All she could feel was the pulsing in her clit and the ache to be filled.
“I’m lonely. All my centuries of life have been spent in staving off the torture of the isolation I suffered as a youth.”
John’s words came to her from the night he had confessed his undead state to her, that all he wanted was to be with her.
People weren’t meant to live forever. It’s not a gift like he says. Even he is tormented by it.
“I’m going to rebuild. I will make more children of the night. My brood will grow, and we will take control of this world. The mortals will serve us, build temples for our everlasting glory, sacrifice themselves willingly to our thirst for the honor of being chosen. And you,” he moaned into her hair, “will be right there by my side.” He lightly grazed her spread pussy lips with his fingertips, chuckling as she squirmed in his lap. “We will spend every night slaking our thirst on the sweetest morsels and devouring each other’s bodies under the moon. Would you like that, sugar?”
She groaned, her thighs shaking and squeezing against his immovable knees.
No! No, you don’t want that! Blood and death, imprisonment, always answering to his every whim! It’s just another form of imprisonment!
Kneeling on a table and waiting all night, anticipating unspeakable pleasure.
Open. Surrender. Smoky voice in my ear. His commanding presence.
She moaned loudly, but it was not at the thought of spending the rest of an immortal life living as some goddess of the night next to Lerexus. She saw one long night of playtime with John, obeying his softly spoken orders in and out of his bed, bending to his seductive will, giving him all the pleasures her body and mind had to offer. She saw pain and delight, submission and the tender, reciprocated worship he poured on her after and sighed longingly.
Dammit. I still love him.
Fuck.
Lerexus misunderstood her sweet agony as a desire for the dream he had just painted and plunged his fingers back into her, curling into her walls firmly. “Such a needy little thing,” he cooed in her ear. “Such a dirty girl. Make another mess for me, dirty girl. Scream for me so everyone in the castle can hear what I do to you.”
She closed her eyes and fell into the rhythm of his fingers inside her and his thumb pressing over her clit. The nails of his other hand irreverently tugged her dress down so her other breast spilled out into the open for him to squeeze and pinch.
Pressed against his apartment window with nowhere to hide from the sleepy town below.
His fingers spreading my pussy.
She moaned again, louder, lost in her own thoughts far away from Lerexus or his taunting in her ear. Like recalling scenes from her favorite movies, she could see clearly the intimate moments she had shared with John. She could feel him on her skin, remember the sensation of him stretching her and filling her, hear his grunts if she focused hard enough. He was ingrained in her body like a unique muscle memory, burned forever into her flesh like a tattoo. She could not escape him or the burning desire she felt for him, and now she knew she didn’t want to.
She ground down into the quickening pace of Lerexus’ fingers and her eyes opened lazily towards the moon glowing behind a haze of drifting clouds. Her hands gripped the velvet draped over his thighs and lifted and dropped herself onto his palm desperately, twisting and gyrating her hips with his pace. Her eye was caught by a dim light high above them. Through the gothic arched window built into the crumbling wall in front of her, behind thin curtains draped in front of it, flickered the gentle glow of a candle behind the silhouette of a man. The figure stood firmly planted, the breeze gently rustling the curtains in front of him now and again.
Her heart jumped.
A warm gust rustled through the courtyard and up into that dim window, blowing the curtains just enough that through the gap between them she saw clearly half of a square jaw sprinkled in white speckled stubble and one crisp gray eye peering down directly at her. She knew the sight well, having committed it to memory the night John had made her wait. There in the darkness of his living room, pressed into the couch beneath him by the weight of his thrusting, she had watched his face half-illuminated by a stray beam of moonlight and felt his kiss in her palm. She could feel his cool lips now as she watched him not so surreptitiously spying on her. It also occurred to her that the whole moment was carefully curated. This stroll had been artfully thought out. John had been placed in that specific room for a reason and she was meant to go for a harmless stroll at this very time. Lerexus had intended from the start to lure her back into his lusty paws with a specific audience.
She had to wonder if any of the things he had said to humanize himself had been true. Perhaps, at least, a few partial truths, but maybe the loneliness had just been a line. Someone who treated human life so cavalierly could not have been capable of any great depth of emotion.
Evil bastard is mimicking John. He knows I fell for him and thinks he can recreate it.
I don’t want to be here with him touching me.
I want to be in that window.
She felt a heaviness settle in her chest, a poignant longing to fall into the arms she knew, instead of the forceful ones that held her pinned now. Lerexus’ body demanded response, touched her with expectation of reciprocation, whereas John’s touch had always been an invitation or assertive request for more.
More.
Passion. Rough. Games. Orders. Surrender.
She shuddered against her captor’s lap and cried out with an agonized whine of longing.
Rules. Punishment. Hands tenderly washing my hair.
Being a vampire queen could never be enough for her now, not when she had experienced what it was like to be John Wright’s princess. As she quaked and moaned alongside her echoes bouncing off the stone around her, she knew there could be no
escape unless it was with John by her side. She did not care that it was brokenness that made him what he was or that there had been others before her. She did not care anymore that he had failed to protect her from his past. All she cared about as she came loudly, staring up into that window, was that he was present in her future. He had asked her to trust him, and just as she had let him guide her through the pitch black of his apartment in a different sort of exercise, it was really all the same. Would she trust him?
“Yes!” she moaned into the night air.
She knew it was just the wind, but she could’ve sworn she heard a ‘good girl’ floating down to her.
Chapter 27
Lerexus seemed content with their little show and did not force himself on her. Lucy did notice, however, him throwing a smug grin towards the direction of the dimly lit window she was sure she had seen John standing in. She also noticed as he led her back inside that her own suite looked down on this very courtyard just across from that window. It seemed her captor had planned his every move, carefully thinking out each and every detail of this moment when he could punish John for his transgressions. So close, yet so helpless to do anything.
Lucy finished out the night in her wrinkled dress cleaning whatever room Lerexus chose to occupy, suffering his leering eye as she tended to her chores exposed in her revealing outfit to any who sought an audience with him. She was surprised Doris had not been among the trickling. It had been a few nights since she had seen the angry woman and was almost beginning to miss her icy glaring.
“Dawn will soon be upon us,” the ancient vampire lord announced to her as he rose from his seat in his study where he had been perched under the guise of reading while he secretly eyed her dusting the stuffy chamber. “I’ll escort you to your room.”
“Not Doris?”
“No, not Doris. She’s away. It will do her good to take a break from your presence. She sees only the weak girl you were, but she will return to the formidable right hand you will soon become and find it easier to respect your leadership.” He motioned for the door.
“Maybe,” she started softly, sauntering to where he waited with his hand resting on the door’s lever. “Maybe, instead of sleeping all alone in that big bed all day, I can join you.”
He took in a steady breath as his gaze dropped to her fully exposed breasts behind the sheer mesh draped over them.
She slipped into the narrow gap between the closed door and his lean body. “Please?”
She saw a self-satisfied glimmer in his eye, as if he were internally celebrating this obvious victory over her, too arrogant to sense the subtle manipulation beneath the surface. He reached out to touch her chin and rub his thumb along her plump bottom lip. “A vampire’s coffin is a sacred place of safety. It would be quite a leap to trust you with my person in such a vulnerable state.”
“I’ve never slept in a coffin,” she lied. “I want to know where I’ll be sleeping the rest of my life.”
That couch in his crypt was old. Wooden legs. I could break one off and stake him with it.
“John did not invite you into his?” he asked curiously.
“No,” she lied again.
He grunted in deep thought as he turned her face back and forth in his hand to admire it. He dropped it suddenly to squeeze her breast then leaned in and growled in her ear, “If we had more time, I would have you right here, up against this door.”
Even fucking better. Seduce him until the sun is up, then find a window or door to open!
She let out a tempting breathy moan and arched her hips into his where she could already feel his erection stirring. “Then take me.”
He sighed as if he meant to give in and pressed his growing cock hard against her. “I can see productivity will be a struggle for me with you here in my castle.” His eyes dropped to her mouth and he drew closer as if to kiss her, but then pulled away at the last second. “Not tonight, sugar. Now come. It’s time for bed.”
Her teeth clenched in hidden dismay, but she managed a nauseating, “Yes, Master,” then followed him back to her suite.
Lucy shimmied out of her dress and kicked it to the side to rid her body of Lerexus’ scent as she lazily made her way through the sitting room to the bed waiting for her through the open French doors. She heard the door to the suite lock from the other side as Lerexus tucked her away for the day. She sat down on the edge of the fluffy mattress and yawned. Despite her slight recovery from not being drained of her blood every two seconds, she was still fatigued and withered feeling. Even if her plan had worked and by some snowflake’s chance in hell she had been able to lure Lerexus into a false sense of security to trick and make a run for it, she’d have barely made it down a flight of stairs before becoming winded.
She chortled at her own flawed plan, imagining she wouldn’t have even made it out of the castle before being recaptured.
She was torn from her morbid thoughts by the sight of the open drapes, above the seat, of the window in front of her. She saw one glass door was pushed in and left ajar and through its panes the first grays of dawn were lighting the horizon. Curiously, she crossed the room to investigate, leaning forward on the window seat to peer out. All she saw past the narrow ledge of stone outside the window was a steep drop into the withered courtyard. Across the way, she could see a candle still flickering in John’s window, but with sunup fast approaching she knew he was probably already locked away in whatever rickety coffin he had been provided.
“Don’t scream,” came a low whisper behind her.
Her head snapped around so fast it felt like it might continue for a full rotation. She stared shocked to find John, bound once more in the shiny silver handcuffs, standing beside her bed.
“If you make a sound, someone will hear. That brute is still hanging around outside your door.” He then nodded to the window behind her. “Would you mind closing those, please?” He shifted his bound wrists awkwardly as the metal burned him.
Speechless, she pushed the glass doors closed and drew the curtains tight, leaving the two of them in the dim light of the candelabrum on the nightstand, but safe from any stray rays from the sunrise beginning to glow under the horizon outside. “How?” she asked in shock.
“That ledge is just wide enough for someone to shimmy very carefully across.”
“You did that handcuffed? Are you insane? Couldn’t you have gotten hurt? What about the time? You’re stuck here all day now.”
“I... needed to see you.”
If he can fit on that ledge, so can I...
“I thought he took those off of you nights ago?” she asked as she watched the faint steam rising from his white skin.
“We had a disagreement,” was all he answered, then suddenly changed the subject. “I assume this means you’ve taken him up on whatever it is he’s offered you for your submission,” he stated bluntly.
“Would that bother you?” she replied cryptically.
Let him flounder. Let him squirm a little. He deserves at least that.
He sighed heavily and did not meet her gaze. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, but all things have their expiration. I enjoyed our time together and will treasure those memories. However, I told you I had a plan and now I’m afraid things are set in motion that cannot be undone. If a life with him is truly what you’ve chosen, you’ll need to warn him.”
Her eyes widened and she rose from her seat. “He would kill you for a second betrayal.”
“He would.”
“How can you be so nonchalant about that?” she asked in shock.
“I’ve lived a long life, seen many things, loved, been loved – I think. What more could a man ask of his existence? I can meet death with no regrets... but for one.”
“What’s that?”
He crossed the short distance between them and she was suddenly aware of her nakedness. His fathomless eyes glowed in the light of the candles as they settled on her. “That I did not lock you away all for myself when I had the c
hance.”
Shackles. Hidden. Owned.
The image was not so different than what she had already experienced in Castle Sheol, but for being kept by a man she would gladly call master. How easily the scenery changed at the thought of being John Wright’s captive pet, bound, restrained, sacrificing the blood in her veins willingly to him, taken each night in some new dark game. She stepped a little closer, looking up into his otherworldly gaze. “These memories you’ll treasure, what are they exactly? Tell me.”
“The first time I met you, how I watched you while you slept.”
She felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips but suppressed it. “You watched me? When I fell asleep in your class?”
“I did. The truth is, I just couldn’t bring myself to wake you. You looked so peaceful, so beautiful.”
“What else?”
“The first time I tasted your lips.” He closed his eyes momentarily. “The need in your body was so great it was like an audible hum, a siren’s call beckoning me.” His eyes opened and he stepped closer. “I should have taken you right then, ravished you and then hidden you away in a remote tower.”
She licked her lips, remembering the powerful first kiss they had shared, how it had stirred her impossible need for more and soon became all she could think of. Could he sense its presence in her still? Did he know? “What else?” she asked again with a slight waver in her voice.
His mouth did not break from its deep grimace, but she could see the grin glittering in his gaze as he realized what she was doing. He took another step to her, standing so close her nipples brushed the buttons of his black vest. “The first time I tasted your pussy. Do you remember?” he rasped low as he bent his head down to her ear.
Waiting on his coffee table. Knees hurting. Neck stiff. His tongue parting me open.
Slow. Teasing. Testing.
She shuddered despite herself. “Yes,” she answered weakly.
